Mauritania receives US$17.9 million agriculture loan and grant

A US$17.9 million loan and grant from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to Islamic Republic of Mauritania will help to improve the incomes and the living conditions of poor rural households depending on agriculture, the United Nations rural poverty agency has announced.

The loan and grant agreements are for the second phase of the Poverty Reduction project in Aftout South and Karakoro regions.

While the country’s agriculture is fragile due to recurrent drought and the desertification, the sector employs more than 56 per cent of the country’s population.

During this second phase of the project, the Government of Mauritania and IFAD will work together to boost the potential of the agriculture sector by enabling vulnerable rural households to significantly increase their production, part of which will be used to improve their food security; to create jobs for young people in agriculture, and other related occupations. The project will also focus on capacity-building activities to help women to acquire access to new economic opportunities and responsibilities within the rural organizations.

The project will build on the accomplishments of the first phase, which began in 2002 in an area known in Mauritania as the “poverty triangle”. During this time, the percentage of households suffering from periodic food shortage decreased and improvements increased such as the status of children’s nutrition, overall living conditions and basic infrastructure.

The second phase of the project will help build an economic and social fabric based on sustainable natural resource management that will be inclusive to poor rural households, particularly women and young people. More than 21,000 vulnerable rural households, women and young people will benefit from the project.

To date, IFAD will have financed 13 programmes and projects in Mauritania for a total investment of US$115.1 million benefiting 181,950 households.

IFAD

Fresh attempt at irrigated agriculture in Mauritania

by Med Abderrahmane

In a bid to reduce food insecurity, the Mauritanian government is turning to several new approaches to agriculture, including expanded irrigation schemes, popularising new crops and harnessing the energy of recent graduates.

The new strategies follow a period that focused on training for smallholder farmers, the introduction of mechanisation for large-scale production, as well as guaranteeing good prices to farmers as means of ensuring a steady supply of farm produce.

Ahead of the 2011-2012 growing season in this West African country, 125 unemployed graduates were put through basic training in farming techniques. They have taken charge of 1,500 hectares of land on the M'Pourié plain, on the banks of the Senegal River not far from the southern Mauritanian city of Rosso.

Rabia Mint Zeidane, an economics graduate, is managing a field of ten hectares not far from Rosso. She's been working here since May. Under the hot sun, far from family and friends, she spends the whole day clearing irrigation canals alongside her two labourers to ensure adequate water for her rice beds.

She declares herself determined to succeed in a domain traditionally reserved for men. Mint Zeidane said that like her counterparts, she has benefited from an agriculture training programme, access to a plot of land, a grant equivalent to roughly 1,430 dollars as well as two dairy cows.

Aside from the programme involving unemployed graduates, the authorities have also introduced wheat farming in a programme covering six of the country's 13 regions.

The government has ambitious plans to extend the country's irrigated acreage. Last year, not more than 20,000 hectares were irrigated, but for the season now under way, it is expected to exceed 30,000 ha, including 3,700 hectares devoted to growing rice. Wheat, vegetables and fruit will also be grown, depending on the varying characteristics of the soil.

In the capital, Nouakchott, and around Rosso and other areas, there were intensive preparations beginning in March, to make credit available, raise awareness, assess and improve access to water, and to put in place measures against potential pests.

But in the fields which are already at the stage of tillage and planting, all is not going as well as the producers had hoped.

Mohamed El Ghaly Ould Maayouf, who has a large field, says that the cost of production for even a single hectare of rice is very high - around 1,300 dollars, after accounting for the exorbitant costs of labour, fuel and transport. He says he's equally worried by the risks posed by uncertain rainfall and pests. He is particularly bitter over the spread of typha, an invasive reed which chokes irrigation canals.

Maayouf says that with stronger protection against birds and rats, as well as effective control of invasive vegetation, his yield could reach four tonnes per hectare of rice. But this, he says, would be just enough to cover his expenses, adding that only a yield above four tonnes per hectare will generate a profit on his efforts.

Daouda N'Diaye, who cultivates a field at Boghé, complains about the limited number of tractors available for tillage. Alioune Awbek, a farmer in Trarza, calls for the reactivation of a fund to support producers who suffer setbacks due to disasters during the growing season.

Salem Merrakchi, an agricultural engineer who is supervising wheat production, says the farmers who have followed the technical advice on offer can expect good results. He says he expects production of more than 3,840 tonnes of wheat from 1,882 hectares, though he stresses that some regions have proved unsuitable for the new crop.

"Difficulties linked to poor knowledge of wheat cultivation, animals wandering into fields, late preparation of plots and the absence of selective herbicides in Mauritania have held them back," Merrakchi says.

Bettar Ould El Bou, director general of Crédit Agricole - an agriculture finance institution with its roots in rural savings and loan cooperatives - said that over ten years, his institution had disbursed more than 43 million dollars in loans. But not only has less than 30 percent of this money been repaid, a good part of this money has not been invested in agriculture. He said the institution has put in place reforms to better monitor the real use of its funds.

Niang Samba Demba, president of an umbrella group of cooperatives in the Gorgol region in the south of the country, said that previous efforts to introduce irrigation in the 1980s were not fully thought through. He says many farmers abandoned irrigation farming in the subsequent decade because of losses to pests, inadequate techniques for threshing wheat, and climatic uncertainties. Many farmers were left owing money, leaving them ineligible for new loans.

Demba added: "This time, we have no excuse for failure. The means are available and there is support for the programmes at the highest level. It's a question of survival and of independence in cereal production." He said farmers now have access to water, tractors and combine harvesters, improved seeds, quality fertilisers and technical training.

IPS

Mauritania increases credit for farmers

Mauritania’s president gave an upbeat assessment of the arid African country’s prospects of food self-sufficiency as he announced tripling of funds for loans to farmers.

With world food prices mounting, Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi said on television the northwest African state had the potential to make itself self-sufficient in food. He called on people to get over a dependency culture caused by years of catastrophe and drought.

"We have everything we need for production," he said: "fertile land, water and men. We now no longer have any excuse not to press ahead towards self-sufficiency in food."

A potential 140,000 hectares of fertile land was available, but only 20,000 had been cultivated last year, while the country was importing three quarters of its food needs, said the president. He called for an increase in rice production which had already risen from 39,900 tonnes in 2006 to 61,450 last year.

In order to maximise production, the state would take over any land not being developed by its owners, he warned. The president urged more wheat cultivation and said plans were in hand to build some 40 dykes to improve production during the rainy season.

Agricultural credits would be increased from 1.2 billion ouguiyas (5.1 million dollars) in 2007 to 3.8 billion ouguiyas this year, the president promised. He also said loans of 60,000 ouguiyas per hectare would be made available specifically to help smallholders, repayable over three years.

The president announced the setting up of a special aid fund for natural catastrophes affecting agriculture, and for purchase of agricultural equipment to be made available to all farmers.

African governments have been nervously confronting a mounting wave of often deadly social unrest caused by the soaring cost of food and fuel. There have been riots in Mauritania, and other west African countries including Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Senegal and Burkina Faso.

Mauritania is comparable in size to Egypt with an area of more than a million square kilometres, approximately three quarters of which is desert or semi-desert. As a result of extended, severe drought, the desert has been expanding since the mid-1960s. Most of the population still depends on agriculture and livestock for a livelihood.

The Times

Mauritania launches $160 million emergency plan to boost cereals production

Mauritania announced the final part of a $160 million emergency programme to combat rising food prices on April 24, including efforts to boost rice and cereal production and cut its dependency on exports.

The government hopes to be able to lift food production to 99,000 tonnes of white rice and 106,000 tonnes of cereal, enough to cover 35 percent of the country's needs.

Under the programme, Mauritania will buy 20 tractors and 20 combine harvesters, build dams to help irrigate land and set up a fund to help mitigate the shock of any natural disasters.

"These structural measures will be closely followed with a meeting every fortnight to oversee the progress of the works and the good management of the programme," said Yahya Ahmed El Waghef, secretary general at the presidency.

A doubling of the prices of major cereals on international markets since mid-2007 has sharply increased the risk of hunger and poverty in developing countries, and has already sparked food riots in parts of Asia and Africa, including Mauritania.

The arid former French colony, which straddles black and Arab West Africa, has suffered from desertification for decades and from the under-development of its agricultural sector. More than a third of its cultivable land has been abandoned.

Many West African governments, seeing their people take to the streets to protest the high cost of living, have moved to try to offset the effects of the soaring commodity prices.

Burkina Faso's government has suspended customs duties on rice imports for six months. Mali has also lifted taxes on rice imports, while Guinea has banned exports of food and livestock.

Neighbouring Senegal, which imports more than 80 percent of its rice needs, announced an ambitious plan last week to increase its current rice production five-fold to 500,000 tonnes in a season.

The West African Economic and Monetary Union said on April 23 it was providing 100 billion CFA francs ($240 million) to help member states mitigate inflation after a series of protests against the cost of living around the region.

Reuters

Locust sighting causes scare in Mauritania

Locusts have been spotted in the Chemama region of south western Mauritania, causing panic among the local population, according to an official of a Keur Macene, a town on the Senegal border. But experts say the insects do not pose a threat to livelihoods.

“These insects are áboricole’or ‘tree locusts’, which pose no great harm to people’s crops, unlike the ‘pelerins’ or ‘desert locusts’”, which can destroy people’s livelihoods in a matter of hours, said Keith Cressman, locust forecasting officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

"The worst damage that tree locusts will cause there is to defoliate some of the region’s acacia trees,” he said. Though tree locusts do not travel in big swarms like desert locusts do, the two types are often mistaken for one another, he added. Tree locusts are common in the Sahel region at this time of year.

A small swarm of desert locusts can eat as much food in a day as 2,500 people. In recent years, Mauritania has recorded regular locust outbreaks of desert locusts that destroy crops and pastures.

A major outbreak in 2004 stripped agricultural land throughout the West Africa region just before the harvest, leaving many farmers without a means of survival.

IRIN

Europe takes Africa’s fish, and migrants follow

Ale Nodye, the son and grandson of fishermen in this northern Senegalese village, said that for the past six years he netted barely enough fish to buy fuel for his boat. So he jumped at the chance for a new beginning. He volunteered to captain a wooden canoe full of 87 Africans to the Canary Islands in the hopes of making their way illegally to Europe.

The 2006 voyage ended badly. He and his passengers were arrested and deported. His cousin died on a similar mission not long afterward. Nonetheless, Mr. Nodye, 27, said he intended to try again. “I could be a fisherman there,” he said. “Life is better there. There are no fish in the sea here anymore.”

Many scientists agree. A vast flotilla of industrial trawlers from the European Union, China, Russia and elsewhere, together with an abundance of local boats, have so thoroughly scoured northwest Africa’s ocean floor that major fish populations are collapsing.

That has crippled coastal economies and added to the surge of illegal migrants who brave the high seas in wooden pirogues hoping to reach Europe. While reasons for immigration are as varied as fish species, Europe’s lure has clearly intensified as northwest Africa’s fish population has dwindled.

Last year roughly 31,000 Africans tried to reach the Canary Islands, a prime transit point to Europe, in more than 900 boats. About 6,000 died or disappeared, according to one estimate cited by the United Nations.

The region’s governments bear much of the blame for their fisheries’ decline. Many have allowed a desire for money from foreign fleets to override concern about the long-term health of their fisheries. Illegal fishermen are notoriously common; efforts to control fishing, rare.

But in the view of West African fishermen, Europe is having its fish and eating them, too. Their own waters largely fished out, European nations have steered their heavily subsidized fleets to Africa.

European Union officials insist that their bloc, which has negotiated fishing deals with Africa since 1979, is a scapegoat for Africa’s management failures and the misdeeds of other foreign fleets. They argue that African officials oversell fishing rights, inflate potential catches and allow pirate vessels and local boats free rein in breeding grounds.

Pierre Chavance, a scientist with the French Institute for Research and Development, said both foreign fleets and African governments allowed financial considerations to trump concerns for fish or local fishermen. “One side has a big interest to sell, and the other side has a big interest to buy,” he said. “The negotiations are based upon what people want to hear, not the reality.”

In Mauritania, lobsters vanished years ago. The catch of octopus — now the most valuable species — is four-fifths of what it should be if it were not overexploited. A 2002 report by the European Commission found that the most marketable fish species off the coast of Senegal were close to collapse — essentially sliding toward extinction.

“The sea is being emptied,” said Moctar Ba, a consultant who once led scientific research programs for Mauritania and West Africa.

In a region where at least 200,000 people depend on the sea for their livelihoods, local investments in fishing industries are drying up with the fish stocks. In Guinea-Bissau, fishermen who were buying more boats less than a decade ago now complain they are in debt and looking to get out of the business.

“Before, my whole family could live on what we caught in one pirogue,” said Niadye Diouf, 28, whose Senegalese family sold their pirogue for $500 to pay for an illegal — and ultimately unsuccessful — voyage to Spain. “Now even five pirogues would not be enough.”

Fishermen like Mr. Diouf argue that Africans should have first priority in their own waters — an idea enshrined in a 1994 United Nations treaty on the seas that acknowledges the right of local governments to sell foreigners fishing rights only to their surplus stocks. But that rule has been repeatedly violated along northwest Africa’s nearly 2,000-mile coast.

Studies dating to 1991 indicated that Senegal’s fishery was in trouble. In 2002, a scientific report commissioned by the European Union stated that the biomass of important species had declined by three-fourths in 15 years — a finding the authors said should “cause significant alarm.” But the week the report was issued, European Union officials signed a new four-year fishing deal with Senegal, agreeing to pay $16 million a year to fish for bottom-dwelling species and tuna.

Four years later, Mauritania followed suit. Despite reports that octopus were overfished by nearly a third, in 2006 Mauritania’s government sold six more years’ access to 43 European Union vessels for $146 million a year — the equivalent of nearly a fifth of Mauritania’s government budget.

“I don’t know a government in the region that can say no,” said Mr. Chavance, the French scientist. “This is good money, and they need it.”

Sid-Ahmed Ould-Abeid, who leads a Mauritanian association of small fishermen, said: “The E.U. has the money, so it has the power. It is easier to sacrifice the local fishermen.”

“We can’t compete with the European Union,” Ahmed Cherif said as he strolled past row after row of idle pirogues. “The government should have kept this resource for Mauritanians. Let these people work.”

Europe is just one foreign contributor to fish declines. Countries from Asia and the former Soviet Union also dispatched ships to ply northwest Africa’s seas. But often those fleets stay for shorter durations and without the same promises of responsible fishing and local development.

In fact, little development has taken place since the European Union signed its first fish deal with a West African nation in 1979. The huge economic benefits that come from processing and exporting the catch remain firmly in European hands.

African governments either misspent or diverted the funds earmarked for development to more pressing needs, while the Europeans sometimes made only token efforts on promised projects. Nouadhibou harbor, for instance, remains littered with 107 wrecked fishing trawlers eight years after the European Union promised to clear them to help develop the port.

In their defense, European officials say they moved to reform their fishing agreements in 2003 to address criticism that ship operators were overfishing and were undercutting local fishermen. Fabrizio Donatella, who heads the European Union unit that negotiates fishing deals, says the new agreements are models of responsible fishing and transparency.

Examples of mismanagement abound. The number of pirogues in six northwest African countries exploded from 3,000 to 19,000 in the last half-century, but Senegal and other nations have only recently begun to license them.

Guinea-Bissau, a nation of 1.4 million people, is a prime example of how not to run a fishery. According to Vladimir Kacyznski, a marine scientist with the University of Washington, no one has comprehensively studied the nation’s coastal waters for at least 20 years.

Daniel Gomes, Guinea-Bissau’s 12th fishing minister in eight years, said he had tried to be conservative in how much access to grant foreigners, despite paltry scientific data and severe economic pressures.

Still, asked whether his nation would end up with empty waters, he replied: “This prospect is not out of the question. This could happen.”

NYTimes